Tacco and the Painters (A Fable for the Nineties)

Henry and I were having a conversation via e-mail, and happened upon a
subject of difficult clients. As in many things, he and I see eye to eye on
this issue - but he managed to do me one better: while I was still fuming
just a bit, and thinking about how to make things go better the next time,
Henry sent me this story that captured my (and clearly his) experience
perfectly, and ticked off all the checkboxes I was trying to fill. In fact,
I was bemused and stunned by how well it did so... but that is
traditionally the case with parables. They're timeless, and their lessons
endure.

This tale may not have much to do with Linux, or Open Source in general;
however, part of LG's function, as I see it, is to educate and entertain -
or better yet, to educate while entertaining. For those of you who, like
myself, work as consultants, or plan to go on your own and become
consultants, I recommend this story heartily and without reservation: read
it, understand it, follow it. Someday, it may save your sanity; for the
moment, I hope that it at least tickles your funny bone.
-- Ben Okopnik, Editor-in-Chief

"Here is our cottage," said Tacco. "We'd like it painted nicely."

"Of course," said Ozzy. "We always try to do a good job. Our workers
are very diligent. I'm sure you will be satisfied."

Tacco showed Ozzy all around the cottage. Ozzy asked the occasional
question and made some notes.

"We usually provide an estimate of how long the job will take and
charge time and materials," said Ozzy.

Tacco looked horrified. "No! We cannot agree to that!" he exclaimed.
"We will only proceed with you if you give us a fixed-price quote."

Ozzy looked uncomfortable. "We might be able to provide a fixed-price
quote. But we would need to have everything specified fairly precisely. We
wouldn't be able to permit ad hoc renovations once we start the
work."

"That's all right," said Tacco.

"And I'll bring in a couple of my estimators so that you and they can
agree exactly what the job is," continued Ozzy.

"When can you start? We want this job finished very soon because
people will be wanting to live in this cottage in the very near
future. We expect to have finished refurbishing in a couple of weeks."

They discussed dates for a while and finally agreed that the painting
would be finished in three months, at the end of May. They made an
appointment for Ozzy's estimators to go over the cottage with Tacco.

A few days later, Ozzy asked Tacco to go over the cottage in some
detail and tell the estimators and Ozzy the details of the painting
job: number of coats of paint, colour scheme and so on. The estimators
took measurements of the room sizes and layout.

Back in the office, Ozzy pored over the figures to come up with a
quote for Tacco. He had his secretary type it up and then he checked
all the details. He even had his estimators check his calculations. At
last, he mailed off the quote to Tacco.

A few days later, Tacco rang Ozzy to tell him the good news. Ozzy had
won the business. Tacco was eager to get the work under way. Ozzy's
team of painters would start the following week.

When the painters arrived, Tacco was there to meet them. He led them
to a building.

"This isn't the cottage that we looked at last time," said David, one
of the painters (who was also one of the estimators).

"No," agreed Tacco. "But its very similar to the one you saw. I'm sure
the differences are not important."

David was a bit doubtful, but he was reluctant to appear
uncooperative. So he bit his tongue and led his work-mate, Charlie,
into the cottage.

"It doesn't look like the renovators have finished this cottage," said
Charlie.

"No, they haven't," agreed Tacco. "But they'll be finished by the time
you are ready to start painting."

"But I'm ready to start right now," wailed Charlie. "David and I were
going to start preparing the walls today."

"Well, can't you prepare the walls in those 2 rooms over there and
come back and prepare the walls in here another day?" asked Tacco.

"I can do that," agreed Charlie. "But I was counting on doing all the
preparation in one day."

Tacco gave him a look that suggested that Charlie was being most
unreasonable.

Charlie and David prepared the walls in the two rooms specified and
returned to the office. It was too late to start another job, so they
sat around playing darts.

A few days later, Charlie received a phone call from Tacco saying that
the renovators had finished all their modifications and so the rest of
the cottage was ready.

"When will you be here?" Tacco demanded.

Charlie was in the middle of some work for another customer. But Tacco
was so insistent and Charlie tried so hard to please his customers
that he agreed to go out that same afternoon.

When Charlie got to the cottage, Tacco's twin-brother Racco was there
obviously very busy performing renovations on the cottage.

"Anyway, it shouldn't bother you if the renovations aren't entirely
finished. There must be other things you can go on with because we
finished 4 other rooms yesterday. When you're ready to start work on
the new rooms, we will have finished them."

"But the cottage we first saw had only 4 rooms altogether. It sounds
like there are now 6 or 7 rooms. This is no longer a cottage, it's a
house."

"Stop complaining," demanded Racco. "The rooms we added on aren't very
big and they are basically exactly the same as the ones we showed
you."

"I'm not supposed to do any more work until all the renovations are
finished," said Charlie.

"Oh well. Since you're here I'll get Jocco to finish these
renovations. It'll only take about 5 minutes. Can you wait?"

Charlie felt trapped. 5 minutes didn't seem like such a long time. It
would be churlish of him to walk out now.

"All right. I'll wait," he replied.

Charlie tried to go on with some other work that needed to be done. He
noticed that some of the walls that he had prepared last time had had
some further renovations carried out on them. I guess I had better
redo the preparations on these walls, he thought.

Just then Racco came back. "Look, is it all right if I just take some
measurements in here?" he asked, and without waiting for a reply began
to measure the walls.

Charlie was non-plussed. Now there was nothing he could go on with. I
guess I'll get myself a coffee, he decided.

As he was coming back with the coffee, he overheard one of Racco's workers
saying, "Those workers of Ozzy's are bludgers. All they ever
do is sit around and drink coffee."

She betrayed no embarrassment at being overheard. Charlie was almost
in tears and turned away so as to hide his distress. He made a
production of drinking his coffee to calm himself.

An hour later, Racco came back and informed Charlie that the
renovations were now complete. He gave Charlie a few scribbled pages.

"These are the room numbers and the labels on the corresponding
keys," he explained to Charlie. "All the rooms are, of course, locked.
Check that each key works in the corresponding lock. Let me know if
there are any problems and I will have our Service Department provide
a new key."

Charlie looked at the list in dismay. There were 136 keys!

He put the list aside and decided he would deal with that another day.
For now, he would try to finish the preparation on 2 of the original
rooms.

After half an hour, he had nearly finished the first room. Charlie
found it most satisfactory to divide a room into sections. Each
section consisted of an area of wall 2 metres wide, from floor to
ceiling. He was just starting the last section when he heard a
crashing noise and found that the plaster sheet had fallen to the
ground and smashed to pieces.

He went to see Racco. Racco was very annoyed. "You must have hit it
with a sledge hammer - our plasterers guarantee that our walls can
withstand normal wear and tear."

They went to inspect the damage; all the while Racco muttered about
incompetent fools. "I'm going to have to get someone to rebuild this
wall," he complained.

"Look how strong these walls are," he announced, banging on another
section with his fist. "They're all built to the same standard," he
continued, banging on another wall. This time he banged a little
harder. "We've been guaranteed that they can withstand even the
heaviest pounding by the strongest fist. Of course, they're not
intended to withstand a sledge hammer."

Proudly, he banged on each panel in turn. Suddenly, there was a loud
crack, and the panel disintegrated. Racco swore loudly.

"Those bloody cretins in Building Maintenance," he yelled, inspecting
the underlying frame. "I told them to check the frames and replace any
rotten ones. It's not our fault. We only attach the plaster. If the
frames are rotten, the nails don't hold and the plaster falls off. It
happens all the time.

"Shouldn't bother you though. You can continue working in one of the
other rooms. They're all the same so it shouldn't matter which room
you work on next."

Charlie tried hard to regroup. Things seemed to have gotten completely
out of hand. When had this exercise first left the rails, he wondered.
Which was the exact moment when things had started to go wrong? It was
an impossible question.

He left the building, thoroughly dejected.

The next day, Charlie and David went back to the house. "I'll start on
some of the new rooms," said David. "You see if you can't finish the 2
original rooms."

Charlie started mixing paints. This is better, he thought. He wasn't
too keen on preparation, although he understood the need for it. He
felt there was little to show for an awful lot of hard work. But
painting was dead easy, and the customers were always cheered when
they saw how nice a room looked once the painting had been finished.
They never seemed to understand the connection between fastidious
preparation and a stunning final result. But Charlie understood.

As he worked, he started to hum and his spirits soared. Then David
came into the room where Charlie was painting. He looked pale.

"What's up?" asked Charlie.

"I've just tried the doors on half-a-dozen rooms," replied David. "None
of the keys fit!"

"What do you mean?" asked Charlie. "You must have to jiggle them a
bit. Keys get stuck sometimes."

"No," cried David. "The keys DON'T FIT - I can't even get them in the
keyhole! They're the wrong sort of key for the lock!"

Charlie went back with David to check. Sadly David was right. They
went to see Racco.

"I'm not responsible for keys - that's Security Services. We have no
control over keys and locks." Racco paused for a moment. "Look, the
renovations are finished. We'll get Security Services to cut new keys.
They shouldn't take long. You'll have the new keys and you can try
them out," he concluded with some satisfaction.

"Well, I'm going to arrange to get them cut!" shouted Racco. "You
don't expect me to test them as well, do you? Look, by the time you
need to start work, all the keys will be done. Just tell me which room
you want to start work on and I'll get that key immediately. I can't
be fairer than that, can I?"

On their return to the office, Charlie complained to Ozzy, who rang
Racco. The response was staggeringly quick: there would be a
Meeting. Not just a meeting or a Meeting, but in fact A MEETING.

There was movement at the station, for the word had passed around...
...So all the cracks had gathered to the fray.
All the tried and noted riders from the stations near and far
Had mustered at the homestead overnight,
For the bushmen love hard riding where the wild bush horses are,
And the stock-horse snuffs the battle with delight.
'The Man from Snowy River', A. B. Paterson

Everyone from Tacco's organisation was at THE MEETING. David and
Juliette were the only two representatives from Ozzy's office.

David tried to explain the situation.

Racco jumped to his feet. "That's bullshit!" he shouted. "It is not
our fault. Those guys from Ozzy's office don't know their job. They do
everything wrong. They couldn't even cut the keys for the locks. We
had to do that!"

Flacco was Tacco's boss. When she heard this outburst from Racco, her
eyebrows shot up. She seemed to be in a conciliatory mood.

"I suggest that Ozzy's people give us an Impact Statement," she
proposed. Turning to Juliette, she continued, "Produce a list
detailing things like the time the plaster fell off the walls, and how
much time was lost. We'll look at it."

Back at Ozzy's office, the staff went into a huddle.

Finally, Borodin spoke.

"We are not going to produce a detailed Impact Statement. Here is the
impact. We were asked to start this job in February. It was understood
that for us to do our painting, the renovations had to be finished. It
is now June. The renovations are still not complete. The impact is the
total time from February to June.

"Further, the impact continues until the renovations are complete. That
means 'completely complete'. Not complete in these 5 rooms and 80% in
the remaining 10. We want to go in on one day, start at one end and
finish the preparation all the way through to the other. Without bits
of plaster hitting the floor. Without discovering that the keys don't
work on Friday. Without discovering that the 7th of July is a Buddhist
holiday.

"We reject entirely the question, 'But isn't there something you can
go on with?' The issue is not whether some part of the building can be
accessed. The only issue is whether the building is completely
accessible. If it isn't, if renovations are still being performed,
people cannot start occupying the building, let alone us painting it."

He folded down a second finger.

"We were asked to give a fixed-price quote on painting a four-room
cottage. We were shown one cottage; we are being asked to paint an
entirely different cottage. And it isn't a cottage any more. It's been
renovated into a 16-room bloody mansion! And the renovations have
still not been completed.

Borodin brought down a third finger.

"Further, there does not appear to have been any design involved in
producing the mansion. The reality is, that we have been the guinea
pigs: when we have pointed out a problem, like the fact that there
were 4 bathrooms upstairs but no toilets, they have gone away,
scratched their heads and come up with a "solution". Which is why
there are so many extra rooms now. The building has grown, but it was
never planned.

"So we have no guarantee that it will ever be finished. Because I
don't think anyone knows what the building is meant to do. Since there
appears to be no definition of "finished", how will anyone recognise the
endpoint if it should ever miraculously appear?"

Borodin reached for his fourth finger.

"There is a serious problem to do with size. Tacco's crew are hoping
to accomodate 120 people in that mansion. But we have checked with
council. They will not permit more than 46 people on that block. We
have pointed that out to Macco. He says he knew there was a limit. In
fact, his understanding was that there was a by-law limiting
occupancy to 32 people.

"What is Tacco's response? Is there any point in us painting enough
rooms for 120 people when only 46 can be accommodated? We could argue
that that is Tacco's problem. But, ..." Borodin left the thought
hanging.

He opened his hand and took hold of his thumb.

"We have told Tacco that we expect to be able to finish the painting
in eight days. Originally, we quoted 39 days. Tacco might say to us,
'How can you claim an impact of the entire time when you originally
quoted 39 days and now you claim you are only 8 days from finishing?'

"The answer is simple. We are claiming an impact of the entire time
because we cannot claim an impact of more than the entire time. If we
could, we would. The real impact is in fact 90 days (or thereabouts):
from February to June. That is the time we have wasted due to Tacco's
incompetence. It may show that we were remiss in our estimation: we
allowed 31 days for Tacco's delays; there were actually 3 times as
many.

"We have actually worked (or tried to) during that time. We have
expended more hours than we budgeted. We have been prevented from
painting other houses. It has cost us even more than it appears on
paper. It is one thing to wear travel time of one hour if one actually
performs 6 hours of useful work at the site. How does one account for
the travel time if one goes out, discovers that one can't work
usefully and comes back an hour later? What about the case where one
goes out, performs 6 hours of hard work doing preparation on a wall,
only to discover the next time we arrive at the site that the wall has
collapsed in the meantime, has been rebuilt, and has to be prepared
again?"

He paused and looked around the room.

"None of what I have said up till now helps to fill the biscuit tin.

"Today is the first day of the rest of the project. We are basically at
the start of the project. There is a difference: usually, at the start
of a project, we don't know how well we can work with the customer. We
tend to assume that the customer will be moderately co-operative and
moderately competent.

"We have now had 3 months' experience with the customer. We know him to
be below par in competence and co-operation. We know that he
attributes absolutely no firmness to deadlines. Worse, he announces
deadlines and, in the same breath, assures us that these will NOT be
met.

"Whatever estimates we made 3 months ago, we now know them to be
naively optimistic. Back then, we expected to be finished in 39 mad-,
er, I mean, man-days. Consequently, we can expect this job to take
much longer than another 39 man-days.

"My guess is that it would be better value for us to cut our losses.
We were barely making money when we quoted 39 man-days. We sure in
hell are gonna lose money if the job takes another 39 plus, say 30%,
... what's that, um, ... 52 man-days.

"Can we expect the job to go better from now on? Let me tell you,
guys: I can't see it; I just don't think that it's likely.

"However, I think there is one slim possibility (even though I can't
see it happening). If, somehow, it can be arranged that someone
important from Tacco's place is in a position where his rooster is on
the solid piece of wood, there might be a chance.

"Then, there might be some resources allocated to this project. So
that, when we come into a room and discover that a wall has fallen
down, we can find someone to tell; and that person has been given the
job of keeping us going as his highest priority; and he has the
ability to either fix the wall himself or he has the resources at his
disposal to get the wall fixed.

"So that, when we get a little lost because there are so many rooms,
we can ask someone to help us navigate around the castle.

"So that there is a full-time person whose responsibility is to learn
how we prepare and paint rooms and who can help us to prepare and
paint rooms. Not because we can't do the job without him - on the
contrary, we can do the job much more quickly without him! But, the
existence of such a person serves a number of goals. First it shows a
commitment on Tacco's part. Secondly, it causes Tacco to feel some of
our pain when things get bogged down (because his person is also out
of action until the project is finished). Finally, one of Tacco's
requirements was that he wanted his staff to be able to perform
touch-up painting after we had finished.

"At the moment, we are the only one's whose roosters are vulnerable."

He stopped. Was there anything else?

"It's a huge shame, really. We started this project with a number of
technical concerns (could our painting machine handle some of the
tricky shapes in Tacco's cottage?). We passed all those tests with
flying colours. We adapted our painting machine and it is now bigger
and better than it used to be. It turns out that we haven't been able
to paint the cottage-house-mansion-castle because it isn't finished.
Technical problems were overcome with breathtaking alacrity.

"So, the last issue is: how will we look if we walk away from this
job? I can't answer categorically. I do know that we have walked away
from other customers who were unreasonable and it doesn't appear to
have hurt us. Generally, it has had a therapeutic effect on our
sanity! Because customers like that mess with your mind. They create
the suspicion that we have not given our all. They attempt to drag us
into the same pit of mediocrity and incompetence in which they lurk.

"My vote would be to call it quits.

"Can we take anything away from this debacle? I think so. I think
there is a lesson here for us for next time.

Henry has spent his days working with computers, mostly for computer
manufacturers or software developers. His early computer experience
includes relics such as punch cards, paper tape and mag tape. It is
his darkest secret that he has been paid to do the sorts of things he
would have paid money to be allowed to do. Just don't tell any of his
employers.

He has used Linux as his personal home desktop since the family got its
first PC in 1996. Back then, when the family shared the one PC, it was a
dual-boot Windows/Slackware setup. Now that each member has his/her own
computer, Henry somehow survives in a purely Linux world.